“a comma is a punctuation mark used to…”

I’ve revised (just a little) a letter I wrote to a dear friend of mine today.  She attends the same bible study I attended in SC…..

Dear Sister(s) in Christ ,
I thought I would write to you, for you have been on my heart for weeks and I need your prayers.
I miss you all so much.  Just thinking of Bible Study beginning again makes my heart long for each of you.
This transition to Florida has been very difficult on me.  It’s amazing how I worried about my kids and it’s me God has put to the grinding wheel.
I have spent months looking back and grieving but purposed several days ago to look forward.  Grief will rise it’s head again and again but hopefully I will look at it with a different focus next time.  A God focus.

We are still renting and have our house on the market in Liberty.  We lost one sale.  It’s a slow, slow market.
I think God is using it to keep us renting and not buying here.  I always think of His “no” as His protection over me.

Although I would love to be “settled” in a house, to know where I’m going to live, to paint and to nest I’m having to learn (and it’s hard GIRLS!!!) to be content in this place of God’s protection.
For pete’s sake I have mauve walls, brown carpet and purple carpet.  How do you decorate that????
Oh how I say I trust Him and my heart denies that very thing.
There is a Paul living deep within me.

My husband ordered me home while he took the kids to Cocoa Beach last night and today.  This morning has really been my first quiet time with the Lord since moving.
I feel as if I’m always behind the 8-ball, grasping at peace as if it were a forbidden piece of fruit.
This morning my house is quiet and my heart is following.  My niece asked me to read Psalm 23 this week and I got the chance to do so this morning.
There before me were all my Beth Moore notes, making my heart long for you all even more.

A few things smacked me in the face.
1.  David WALKS through the valley of the shadow of death.  He doesn’t go around it but purposes step by step to walk through it with steady, slow and deliberate determination.
2.  Shadows are bigger than real life.  There can be no shadow without light.  Which one am I looking for?
3.  Valleys cause my personal relationship with God to grow.  I think to my life verse Isaiah 30:15.  “In repentance and rest is my salvation.  In quietness and trust is my strength.”  and then I read in Psalm 23….”He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, HE RESTORES MY SOUL.”   I think my life verse and Psalm 23 collided this morning.

Please pray for me as I feel so like a fish out of water.  I miss my protected and safe bubble I lived in when I was with you all, surrounded by people who loved me, communing with His people.
Marian, Monique, Pinky…..all the names make my heart cry out.

Jacksonville is very different than my home in SC.  Larger.  Meaner.
I feel more like an extremely vulnerable dry sponge here.  My heart soaks in the meanness of the world it feels overwhelming.
I have learned to appreciate kindness in a way I have never appreciated it before now.
I took it for granted, even expected it, but I don’t anymore.

And now for you my dear sister.  I miss you so much.  I feel so like you right now.  I was a rock or thought I was.  Now I realize I’m not.  I need others.  I need people.  I need God in my pain and my grief.  I have seen your heart change while caring for your husband and in the aftermath of his death.  My, how God has tendered you.  As he is now doing to me.  No longer the strong Julie, but the weak, wondering in the wilderness of this new life Julie.  It’s hard, very hard.  I realize my bravado was a front, a shield of protection when God should have been my protection.  I don’t like the vulnerable place.  But it’s where I am, laid open for the world to see.  Ah, but much more likely just for me to see.  For I know my maker and he’s all about me knowing the truth about me.

And because I know you to be the stickler English grammar woman you are I ask you to forgive all my misplaced commas.  I love them.
I’m feeling like a comma myself right now……waiting for the rest of the story to be completed.
What comes after the comma?

Pray for me dear sisters.
I miss you all so much.

After writing this after my quiet time I got a chance to talk to my birth mom today.  She lives in WI where I’m imagining snowflakes and winter coats.  We talked a lot about punctuation today.  I told her I’ve always felt like a question mark or an exclamation mark, but never a comma.  She said, “Well you could be a dash!”  To which I quickly exclaimed a dash was way better than a comma.  Why?  I don’t know it just sounds stronger.  Comma’s just hang there waiting on what comes next.  But after reading her email this afternoon I think I really feel loved today.  By my Maker, by my husband who gave me a day of rest and by my family.

This is what she wrote:

By the way, the dictionary states a comma is a punctuation mark used to “indicate a separation of ideas or elements within the structure of a sentence” and “a pause or division” – the third definition is some kind of butterfly.

This makes so much sense – of course when God’s growing you and molding you there is going to be a separation of the old into the new and there will be a pause as He molds you to His will – you don’t plop a seed into the ground and see the flower immediately – there has to be the time of preparation for it to blossom and grow into the beautiful lovely flower (or butterfly).

I will pray for you often.  Take care of yourself and allow the growth to happen.